The Catholic League views with alarm the extent to which allegations against Catholic priests for sex abuse have been uncritically received by the media and have then been used by anti-Catholic forces to discredit the entire Catholic Church. The recent charge brought against Chicago archbishop Cardinal Joseph Bernardin is a case in point.

In a statement released to the media on November 16, Catholic League president Dr. William A. Donohue said:

“U.S. law holds that everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty. But the reality is that when the media give voice to mere allegations of criminality, the effect is to seriously taint the character of the accused. We have come a long way since the days when reporters knew of the sexual improprieties of President John F. Kennedy and chose to remain silent.

“So as not to be misunderstood, I am not suggesting that the media cover up wrong-doing in high places, only that they exercise greater scrutiny in deciding when to trumpet someone’ s unsubstantiated allegations against public persons. As journalists well know, libel law affords little protection to public persons. It therefore becomes all the more critical that the media do not unwittingly give succor to those whose agenda is extrinsic to their stated objectives.

“The charge recently made by Steven Cook against Cardinal Bernardin is a textbook case of how easy it is to smear someone’s reputation. By all accounts, Cardinal Bernardin employs impeccable characterological credentials. And by contrast, the character of his accuser is seriously flawed. Cook, an unemployed mental health worker, has admitted to a life of indulgence in sex, alcohol and drugs.

“In addition, Cook says that just last month he experienced ‘a seeing and feeling memory’ that allowed him to recall that he had been sexually abused by Cardinal Bernardin some 17 years ago. Now one would think that when journalists are given stories right out of the Twilight Zone that doubt might conquer their temptation for a scoop.

“More disturbing than even this is the attention the media have given to anti-Catholic forces who delight in trumpeting uncorroborated charges against Catholic clergymen. Catholics for Free Choice is a splendid example of this. Frances Kissling, president of CFFC, recently admitted that CFFC has no members, i.e., it is nothing more than a well-funded letterhead. Those that have contributed to CFFC’s coffers include the contraceptive industry (e.g. Sunnen Foundation), Ford Foundation, Playboy Foundation, the Unitarian Church and Planned Parenthood, none of which has a record of support for Catholic causes.

“Furthermore CFFC is not a bonafide Catholic organization. On November 4th, the U.S. Bishops’ Administrative Committee formally declared that CFFC ‘has no affiliation, formal or otherwise, with the Catholic Church.’

“Perhaps the greatest proof that the empty charge against Cardinal Bernardin is being used by anti-Catholic forces is the public statements that CFFC has issued against the Cardinal and the Church. CFFC is an abortion rights organization. The charge against Cardinal Bernardin has nothing to do with abortion, yet CFFC spokespersons have hit the media tak- ing up the cause of Steven Cook. What this proves is that CFFC will seize any opportunity it can to discredit the Catholic Church, whether or not it has anything to do with its stated mission. In short, CFFC is not only not a Catholic organization, it is an explcitly anti-Catholic force with a not-so-hidden agenda.”

Reaction to the charge against Bernardin was not limited to our shores. Vatican Radio, the official voice of the Holy See, called the charge “filthy, worthy only of disdain.”

Raymond L. Flynn, United States ambassador to the Holy See told the media that anti-Catholic attitudes can play a part in the way such stories are presented to the public. “Catholic bashing has become so commonplace,” Flynn said, “that charges such as these need to be looked at very cautiously before drawing any conclusions.”

Flynn went on to add, “People shouldn’t be too quick to make a judgement of guilt before all the facts are known.”

League exposes “letterhead” organization

Within weeks of the first public admission – during a radio debate with a Catholic League representative – that “Catholics for Free Choice” (CFFC) is a memberless, well-financed “letterhead” organization, the nation’s Catholic bishops have issued a strongly worded denunciation of the group.

On November 4, the Administrative Committee of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a one-page statement noting that CFFC has “no affiliation, formal or otherwise, with the Catholic Church.” The statement made it clear that several media interviews with CFFC leaders at the time of the Papal visit to Denver had given the group an aura of credibility it did not deserve.

The bishops made it clear that CFFC was an integral part of the pro-abortion lobby in Washington and that it was in no way entitled to claim a Catholic label because its stated positions “rejected unity with the Church on important issues of longstanding and unchanging Church teaching.” “In fact,” the statement went on, “there is no room for dissent by a Catholic from the Church’s moral teaching that direct abortion is a grave wrong.”

In a broadcast debate on August 22, with C. Joseph Doyle of the Catholic League, Frances Kissling, president of the self-styled “Catholic” organization, admitted publicly, for the first time, that her organization had no members and that it received funding from openly pro-abortion groups such as the Playboy Foundation.

According to Doyle, “CFFC is an anti-Catholic front group financed by such adversaries of the Catholic Church as the contraceptives industry (through the Sunnen Foundation), the Ford Foundation, the Unitarian Church, and Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Foundation. It has also received substantial in-kind support from Planned Parenthood.”

When Doyle questioned how many members CFFC had, Kissling responded, “We’re not a membership organization. we have no membership.”

Kissling’s admissions, after years of public postering as a Catholic membership organzation claiming broad-based grassroots Catholic support, reveal the organization to be an abortion-industry front designed to cast doubt on and foster dissent from Church teaching.

Reports of Kissling’s debate with Doyle were carried in The Pilot, The Wanderer, The National Catholic Register, Catholic TwinCircle, the Catholic Advocate, Catholic World Report, and on the USA Radio Network. And those are just the ones we know of.

There is little question that anti-Catholicism has increased markedly in recent times, and if there is any serious doubt I invite anyone to stop by my New York office to avail himself or herself of the evidence.

It must be noted that the way anti-Catholicism manifests itself today bears little resemblance to past patterns of bigotry. The nativistic impulses that once characterized immigration policy, and the fantastic charges of dual loyalty to nation and papacy, have certainly not disappeared, but they have subsided.

What is different about today’s strain of anti-Catholicism is that it derives almost entirely from the well-educated strata of society and is directed at both church teachings and traditional Catholics.

In addition, we have a new phenomenon, that of the “self-hating Catholic” – 1960’s generation-types who were raised Catholic but have long stopped practicing (an important minority are still attending to the sacraments).

Their defining mark is their deep-seated hatred about anything Catholic. What accounts for the new wave of anti-Catholicism is the content and constancy of church teachings on morality; the “progressives” want to force a modernist agenda on the ever-resisting church.

Topping the list of contemporary examples of Catholic-bashing has been the Nazi-like tactics of gay militants. In Boston, gay activists have thrown condoms at those attending the installation of a new bishop. In Washington, Queer Nation disrupted a Mass at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. St. Patrick’s Cathedral was the site of gays who interrupted Mass and spit the Communion wafer on the floor. And just recently another gay and lesbian group held a demonstration during Mass at a church in Brooklyn.

If this had happened in a synagogue, the media would have gone ballistic. That they didn’t is testimony to their politics.

The media’s reaction to the recent papal visit to Denver was rife with bias. Every splinter group that could be found, including Catholics for a Free Choice (which has no membership), was given a degree of visibility and credibility that was grossly disproportionate to its following among the rank-and-file.

The mindless polls, all of which failed to discriminate between practicing Catholics and Phil Donahue-type Catholics, added more fuel to the fires of discontent. The goal was clearly to accentuate the negative and thereby marginalize the influence of the Catholic Church on society.

TV and radio shows this fall have been replete with snide references to priest as pedophiles. Would the media generalize from the few to the collective if the subject were the deviant practices of blacks or Hispanics? Obviously not, which begs the question: Why is there a double standard?

It’s not just the media that is at fault. How many realize, for example, that the prevailing climate of political correctness on college campuses means that being pro-life is greeted with disdain and discrimination by faculty and administrators? We even have public officials who are anti-Catholic.

Dr. Joycelyn Elders, the surgeon general, succeeded in being confirmed despite statements that evinced an animus against Catholics. In New York, councilperson Ronnie Eldridge recently said that mayoral hopeful Rudy Giuliani should be considered “suspect” because he once attended Catholic schools.

Imagine saying that a Jew should be considered suspect because he attended a yeshiva.

In short, in this day and age of the much-vaunted multicultural mantra of respect for diversity, there is precious little respect for Catholics. It’s about time Catholics not only recognized this abuse, but did something about it.

This commentary on contemporary anti-Catholicism was prepared for Catholic News Service and published in numerous diocesan weeklies across the country. 

By Damian P. Fedoryka, Ph.D.

Our country seems to be in the grip of a curious consensus. At a time when pluralism is the inevitable consequence of radical differences of opinion, one “slogan” seems to have a unifying power: it is the supposed principle that not all of morality can be legislated.

A famous, one might even say, notorious “Catholic” Senator was quoted at one time by the New York Times to the effect that not all of morality can be legislated. Subsequently, another public figure, a “Catholic” governor, also proclaimed that not all moral laws can be incorporated into civil law. He did this even as he chided Catholics for asking the state to legislate against a sin that they themselves could not refrain from doing.

In parentheses I have to note that I put the term “Catholic” into quotation marks in both cases, not because I question their Catholicity or inner condition of soul, but because I simply do not know what the term “Catholic” can mean when applied to or claimed by individuals in positions of public authority who use that authority to defend and sanction a “right to abortion.” Common sense indicates that when a man deliberately and with sober calculation kills or helps kill an innocent human person, he separates himself from the human community. One would think that anyone who on this account separates himself from the human community would also separate himself from the ecclesial community of the Catholic Church. This is an area where the faithful stand in desperate need of help from the hierarchical authorities, lest common sense and the loss of the true meaning of the word dictate that the term “Catholic” be permanently marked by the quotation marks.

The interesting and significant thing is that the two above shared their position with a Catholic Cardinal and a Catholic Archbishop. Both the Cardinal and the Archbishop stated that not all of the moral law could be translated into civil law. They were joined by a Catholic political theorist who invoked the authority of St. Thomas, who also maintained that not all of the moral law could be legislated by civil authority.

Each of the individuals above were, each in his own way, addressing the pro-life movement and the demand for a legal protection for all abortions. And each, in his own way contributed to the support of a “compromise” on abortion legislation by helping shape and articulate what appears to be a “Catholic” position.

A curious “consensus” begins to emerge and to exert a powerful political influence. On the one hand we have the pro-choice, in fact, the pro-abortion position which claims that morality cannot be legislated. Whatever the disagreement about the morality that one thinks could be legislated, the pro-abortion side and the “Catholic” side seem to come together at least in their rejection of “restrictive” abortion laws. The pro-abortion position and the “Catholic” position may differ in many respects, but they intersect on common ground.

When this happens, the “Catholics” have lost all ground. Why?

If the “Catholics” concede that in some cases there are serious enough reasons for the state to protect a woman’s decision to abort, they have conceded that an innocent human person does not have an unconditional right to life. If any woman has the right to have an abortion in the “serious” cases, who is to decide what is “serious” and what is “frivolous” if not the woman herself?

Let us consider the alternatives. If the State decides which abortions will be allowed and which will not, it obviously can’t do this on the basis of the child’s right. It can be only on the basis of the child’s usefulness to the state or the community. But if the child’s usefulness decides whether it is to live or to die, the woman’s pregnancy must also be only a matter of usefulness. And the feminists win. For they refuse to be used for the benefit of any state, community or man whatsoever. The power of their position rests on an implicit moral principle, namely, no human person should be used as a means. It remains implicit because if it were stated clearly it would open the feminist to the charge of legislating morality. And if it were stated clearly, it would open the question about using unborn human persons.

But let us return to the “Catholic” position which rejects exceptionless abortion restriction on the grounds that we cannot expect all of the moral law to be translated into civil law. If the position demands any restrictions at all, short of an absolute prohibition of abortions, it cannot do so on the grounds of the child’s right to life. Because if the child has a right to life, it has it unconditionally, that is, without exception. Restriction of abortions would have to be done on other grounds, not for the sake of the child. Thus, some have invoked abortion legislation in the name of “public order.” Others have asked, “What next, euthanasia?” In other words, they have invoked the consequences of abortion other than the consequences for the innocent child. Typical is the “argument” that suggests that the discoverer of the cure for AIDS already was or might be the victim of abortion.

In this “Catholic” position the operative “principle” is that not all of the moral law can, or even should be legislated. Is this a valid principle? The answer is, Yes. Indeed, the answer must be formulated in an even more radical way: we must say that morality as such cannot and should not be legislated, not simply that only some morality can’t be legislated.

We appear to be saying the same thing as the pro-abortionists. Lest I be ranged with the liberals, the abortionists and the theological dissidents, let me hasten to note that it does not follow from the above that one cannot demand exceptionless legislation against abortion. Let me explain.

The pro-abortion position is this: “No legislative restriction on abortion.” They claim, against the Catholic opponents, that this position follows from the principle that morality cannot be legislated, even if one holds that abortion is immoral. They will then point out, “Your own people, Catholics, agree that not all of morality can be legislated. Even St. Thomas.”

The opposite, and the true “pro-life,” or more correctly, the right to life position is this: “No legislative sanction for any abortion whatsoever.” This position does not follow from the immorality of abortion. It follows from the injustice of abortion. In other words, the right to life position demands the legislation of justice, not the legislation of morality.

To see this clearly, let us consider a traffic law. The requirement to stop at a red traffic signal does not include the injunction to love, have compassion for or to “want” the child that is crossing the street under the protection of the red light. Imagine a driver running a red light, killing a child and then saying, “I don’t love children. I hate them.” Obviously, the intent of the law was not to stop hatred and other similar immoral acts. Its only interest is to protect the child.

This example illustrates two things. First, civil authority cannot do anything, it is helpless when it comes to immorality and morality. No amount of force or threats can bring a person to become morally good. In this sense, the state cannot deal with the sinner. And it cannot legislate morality. The state, if it is interested in the sinner, can do nothing but leave him to God and the Church, who has the authority to deal with him in the confessional. The state, for its part, cannot absolve the sinner before the act, allowing him to abort. The reason for this is the second point: the state’s “interest” is, or should be, the protection of the rights of the child. It’s mission is justice. It must protect the victim against the sinner. And in protecting the child against an aggressor, the state or its representatives do not first have to change the opinion ofthe aggressor; they do not have to convert him.

It should be clear that the demand for exceptionless prohibitions of abortion follows not from some demand of morality. Rather, it is a demand of justice. The legislative protection, without exception, of the innocent unborn is a legislation of justice. It falls within the scope of the state’s mission of justice. When a state formally and officially abdicates from its duty of justice with regard to the foundation of all other rights, it loses its legitimacy and sovereignty, even if retains power. But this is another topic. Let us return to the legislation of morality and to St. Thomas, who is so frequently invoked in this matter.

No civil authority can legislate anything dealing with the inner moral condition of the soul. It would be impotent, even if it tried to do so. Yet one frequently talks of some of the moral law being legislated. St. Thomas is invoked as saying that a part of the moral sphere cannot be legislated, and a part can. But it is important to note that when St. Thomas talks of that part of the “moral Law” that can be legislated he talks about those “immoral” acts which hurt others.

In other words, St. Thomas means the exact opposite of what some would have him say. When they say that not all moral law can be legislated, they want to leave out of legislation precisely those actions which hurt the unborn child. But St. Thomas selects for legislation not all the moral law, but precisely that part of it which forbids us to hurt others and to steal from them. Although St. Thomas does not use the term “justice” at that point, he is in fact referring to that part of morality which deals with justice.

The liberals should understand this. Not everything that is immoral is also unjust. For example, fornication between mutually consenting adults is immoral, but there is no direct violation of rights. This is what the liberals meant when they pushed for the decriminalization of “victimless crimes.” The Catholic should understand this all the more. In the case of abortion we also have an immorality, but abortion is immoral because it involves an innocent victim. Abortion is immoral because it is unjust. But in the public order, we and the state should be concerned with its injustice, namely, with the victim.

Damian P. Fedoryka, Ph.D., is former president of Christendom College in Front Royal, Virginia. This thoughtful article first appeared in Topics for Catholics, Vol. 1, No.8. It is reprinted here with permission.

Cardinal Roger Mahony has accused the Los Angeles Times of wanting to join “American media’s favorite pastime – Catholic bashing.” The charge was made in letters to the publisher and editor of the paper denouncing two surveys, one of Catholic priests, the other of religious women, currently being conducted by the paper.

According to a detailed story in The Tidings (Archdiocese of Los Angeles weekly), which included a lengthy selection of questions from the priests’ survey, the cardinal was “outraged” after reading the contents of both questionnaires.

The cardinal, wanting to base his criticism on expert opinion, submitted the questionnaires to “two eminent research scholars” who independently concluded that the survey was “heavily skewed toward reaching specific pre-determined conclusions.” One of the reviewers accused the paper of “attempting to prefabricate and market the story,” while the other – a non-Catholic – called it “a poorly designed, sloppy instrument and an inappropriate intrusion on a religious institution.”

Mahoney stated that the survey ignored real areas of concern for priests and women religious while trying to exploit “issues of church authority, sex, and whether priests are sexually active or not.”

“If the Times poll is serious about its ‘goal of better understanding the issues and challenges facing the church today,’ as the survey’s cover letter states, where are the questions on the many other serious areas of concern to the church,” the cardinal pointedly asked.

The cardinal noted that whoever had created the survey had little respect for priestly life or commitment, but were far more interested in “trying to determine how many are active (sexually) either heterosexually or homosexually.” Cardinal Mahony added, “I find this not only sad, but repulsive and demeaning – and an insult to the calling of the priesthood.” The Tidings story listed specific criticisms voiced by the professionals who reviewed the survey:

* The survey instrument reflects very poor design, imbalance, and is very one-sided. Its main purpose seems to be to surface division within the ranks of the clergy, without understanding the meaning of division.

*Research of this type is an insult to good sociologists (Catholic or non-Catholic) who painfully work at sound methodology aimed at digging deeper into the real truth of the matter.

* It is structured to elicit responses in opposition to tenets of the church.

* The survey is an intrusion on a religious institution by the fourth estate. No question, it is a “hit” on the church.

* It shows a lack of understanding of a priest’s vows to his church.

* Questions are poorly written, some are ambiguous or confusing, and many are too general, and because of their generality, are questionable with regard to the truth they are intended to surface.

*The questionnaire’s faulty design reflects that it was never pre-tested – a prerequisite for research.

It remains to be seen how the paper will choose to handle the results of this tainted research and what “spin” they will place on its pre-determined results.

In a statement released on November 2, Shelby Coffey III, editor of the Los Angeles Times responded to the letter from Cardinal Mahony. He completely ignored criticism of the polls and their church-bashing bias. His statement:

The Times has one of the best opinion researchers in the business. Our polls are nationally and internationally recognized as well reasoned and fair – as is our coverage of religion.

Our role is to report, not exacerbate. Our interest in this survey is a journalistic one: to examine a range of subjects – some controversial, some less so – that are important to people within the Catholic Church today. The intent is not to provoke but to aid discussion.

If the nuns and priests who are asked to participate agree with the cardinal about this survey or for any other reason do not want to answer the questions, then they may decline to be part of the survey.

When we have completed our polling in the next several weeks, we will publish the results.

The Catholic League has condemned the extreme anti-Catholicism that marked the October 28th airing of the CBS series “Picket Fences.” While many parts of the show were offensive, two segments stood out.

In one scene, held in a church, between the Protestant minister and the Catholic layman, the minister states that the Catholic “point of view on contraception is nuts.” The minister goes on to add that “This birth control thing goes to a larger conspiracy. The Vatican wants the population explosion to help them to achieve world dominion.”

In a later, and even more outrageous scene, a judge lectures the town’s Catholic priest about birth control: “You’ve got to get that stupid rule off the books.” When the priest explains that he could not expressly say that birth control is not a sin, the judge replies “Then tell the Church to go to hell.” He continues by saying “You can’t continue to oppose both abortion and birth control. Not when the number one threat to this planet is overpopulation.”

Then the threats begin. The judge exclaims that “If the Church doesn’t take action, sooner or later the courts will.” He then says that “the day is coming” when the entire Catholic Church will be sued. The scene’s incredible “punch line” is: “And believe me, the last thing that anybody wants is for judges to start legislating religion. But if the Catholic Church stays rigid on some of these rules, that day is coming.”

In a statement released to both the media and to the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, Catholic League President Dr. William A. Donohue said that the October 28th airing of “Picket Fences” was arguably the most anti-Catholic TV show ever aired. “It is ironic,” he said, “that this bigotry should air on CBS. This is the same network that refuses to show the reruns of ‘Amos and Andy.’ Apparently the degree of tolerance that CBS has for blacks doesn’t extend to Catholics.”

Commenting on the two most offensive segments, Donohue said: “The fantastic idea that the Catholic Church is conspiring to promote a world population explosion so that it can take dominion of the planet is something only madmen and bigots would believe.

“If the first segment showed that the old-fashioned boogie man ideas about the Vatican dominating the world is alive and well in the 1990s, the second segment illustrated the more contemporary approach to Catholic-baiting. We are now told that if the Catholic Church doesn’t conform its teachings on sexuality to the modernist agenda, then the state will reorder the priorities of the Church. Would CBS allow a program that showed the reverse? That is, would CBS air a program showing a Cardinal lecturing a judge in his quarters, admonishing the judge to conform the laws of the nation to the teachings of the Church lest the Church summon its authority to whip the state into line?

“This episode of ‘Picket Fences,’ a production of David E. Kelley and 20th Century, demonstrates just how invidious and frontal is the assault on Catholics in 1993. It must be answered in like fashion. The Catholic League will register its outrage with both CBS and the sponsors of ‘Picket Fences.’

“The Catholic League will not accept the time-worn excuse that this is just fiction. No,’ Amos and Andy’ is fiction, too, but it is precisely because of the bigoted content of the show that CBS does not want to be associated with its message. And the message in ‘Picket Fences’ is the same: stereotype, bait, slander and appeal to hate.”

In a column published in the New York Times on November 18, and syndicated nationally, Anna Quindlen took the National Conference of Catholic Bishops to task for having the effrontery of “attacking” Catholics for Free Choice.

Quindlen, a perennially disaffected “Catholic,” described the bishops’ denunciation of CFFC as a “gratuitous attack on a group of dissidents.” She went on to claim that CFFC was singled out because it was liberal but that organizations such as the Cathalic League for Religious and Civil Rights were left alone because the League is a “conservative” organization that has not been branded “inauthentic.”

Catholic League president Dr. William A. Donohue in a letter to the Times (full text below) put Quindlen in her place by pointedly noting that “CFFC is to Catholicism what Nazis are to democracy.”

Dr. Donohue’s letter to the New York Times

Dear Editor:
Anna Quindlen has once again ventilated her alienation with the Catholic Church, this time by decrying the statement by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops branding as inauthentic Catholics for Free Choice (CFFC); she also mentions that the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights escaped any such labeling.

Herewith are a few facts for Ms. Quindlen to ponder. CFFC is nothing but a well-funded letterhead lacking any membership whatsoever. It has but one goal, and it isn’t abortion rights: it is to undermine the credibility of the Catholic Church. For proof I offer this: CFFC spokespersons have hit the airwaves trumpeting the unsubstantiated charges of Steven Cook against Cardinal Bernardin. Those charges have nothing to do with abortion but they have everything to do with CFFC’s mission of discrediting the Catholic Church whenever it can.

Ms. Quindlen seems to think that any organization that appropriates the title Catholic is entitled to recognition as such. Perhaps she thinks that the Peoples Republic of China actually represents the sentiments of the Chinese people as well. What the bishops did in denouncing CFFC was in strict accord with truth in advertising principles: the organization is a fraud.

As for the Catholic League, we have not been branded as inauthentic because we are conservative (the League has come to the defense of Cardinal Bernardin, and he is hardly a conservative) but because unlike the CFFC we are supportive of the Church’s mission and fight to defend the civil rights of all Catholics, independent of political affiliation. But unlike Ms. Quindlen we do make distinctions: CFFC is to Catholicism what Nazis are to democracy.

Sincerely,

William A Donohue, Ph.D.
President, Catholic League

China’s misguided effort to control its population has cost the Chinese people dearly. Each year since 1980, 30 million women have been made to have abortions, sterilizations, or IUD insertions. Women pregnant with “illegal” second children are commonly bullied into abortions, sometimes even physically dragged off to clinics against their will. The homes of those who flee forced abortion or sterilization are often tom down. Large numbers of “Illegal” newborns have been put to death by lethal injection.

During my stay in a Chinese village in 1980, I was an eyewitness to such abuses of human rights. I have since written extensively about China’s coercive population-control program, and have interviewed many Chinese about their experiences. No story was more dramatic or vivid than that of a woman I shall call Chi An, which I recount in A Mother’s Ordeal: One Woman’s Fight Against China’s One-Child Policy (Harcourt Brace & Company, 1993).

In 1988 I helped Chi An, who was then pregnant, win political asylum in the U.S. on the then-novel grounds that she was fleeing a forced abortion. The Immigration and Naturalization Service bitterly opposed her application from the beginning. Those who resisted China’s one-child policy, INS attorneys argued, were merely social malcontents, not true political dissidents. Besides, they said, granting asylum to Chi An would “open up the floodgates” to a torrent of illegal Chinese immigrants.

I regarded the INS position as naive and troubling. In China any dissent from any government policy – be it the prohibition on underground publications or the ban on second children – is an act of political rebellion. As far as “opening up the floodgates” was concerned how could Chinese in any number escape from that closed society much less cross the vast Pacific to our shores? To me, the INS arguments sounded like an attempt to exploit old, irrational fears of a “yellow peril.”

Chi An’s victory on August 5, 1988, established a precedent: Those Chinese arriving on our shores who could demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution in connection with the one-child policy would henceforth be granted asylum.

In the meantime, I was shocked to discover that, before leaving China, Chi An herself had been a member of the population control police. Charged with enforcing the one- child policy on the women of her factory, she browbeat women into submitting to abortions and sterilizations they did not want. She even assisted in performing late-term abortions on women who desperately wanted to bear the children they were carrying,

The turning point for Chi An came when a close friend became pregnant. Given a choice between informing on her friend who was already in labor and having to report the birth of an “illegal” child to the authorities, she informed. The baby was put to death at birth by lethal injection, and her friend never spoke to her again. Chi An resigned her post and joined her husband in the U.S.

It would have been easy to condemn Chi An for what she had done, but by then I knew too much about her circumstances. Some years before, she herself had been coerced into a mid-term abortion by grim-faced officials who broke her will to keep her baby. She had been forced to sign a one-child agreement and pressured into accepting an IUD. Her conscience had never really recovered from the loss of her child, and was further numbed by her fear of reprisal. The victim had become the victimizer.

Today Chi An and her husband live in the Southwest with their son and daughter. Grateful to the pro-lifers who helped them win asylum, they were drawn to the Catholic church and have now been baptized and confirmed in the faith.

It is ironic that those on the other side of the abortion question – who bill themselves as pro-choice – did not take up Chi An’s cause as well. After all, the government of China not only sponsors abortions by the millions, it takes away a woman’s right to choose.

The silence of pro-choice leaders does not come as a complete surprise to me, however. Most have bought into the population bomb myth, and not a few have openly supported radical population control measures. Eleanor Smeal, for instance, several years ago praised the Chinese policy. Such pro-aborts are willing to overlook the obvious evils of China’s one-child policy for the imagined benefits that the resulting birth dearth will bring. Their sympathies lie with those who choose death, not with those like Chi An, who would choose life.

Steven W. Mosher is the Director of the Asian Studies Center of The Claremont Institute and is the father of seven children.

In the wake of a lawsuit brought on behalf of a U.S. Congressman and two citizens of China, the Justice Dpartment has held up State Department disbursement of U.S. money to the United Nations Population Fund. The suit charges that the Fund aids China’s oppressive and brutal population control programs which include forced abortion and sterilization procedures.

The Clinton administration had just recently decided to resume U.S. support of the U.N. Population Fund which had been cut off since 1985. Funding will be withheld until at least February 1, 1994.